Melding IT With Campus Safety

AS MORE CAMPUS security solutions-- from video surveillance
to access-control systems-- involve the campus
network, IT leaders are by necessity gaining more expertise
about security systems.

University officials also are finding that overcoming cultural
barriers between physical security staff and IT employees
can be as challenging as the technological issues. Two
groups that haven't had much in common in the past now
find themselves working together on a regular basis.

"There has been a migration in which IT has become
more heavily involved in the decision-making," says Robert
Grossman, an electronic-security consultant in Egg Harbor
Township, NJ. But in one sense, he adds, it doesn't matter
whether IT owns the project or public
safety does. "You have to get IT involved,"
he stresses. "If you're going to hop on the
network, you have to know if you're going
to cause problems. Video-surveillance
installations use more bandwidth than
data. Can the network handle it?"

AT MARQUETTE U, the creation of a command information center to monitor 400+ on- and off-campus
security cameras challenged public safety and IT leaders to work together in ways they hadn't previously.

In some cases, IT departments are
increasingly taking responsibility for security
on campus. For instance, the network
technicians' role in public safety at Michigan
Tech University has grown to such
an extent that Dan deBeaubien, director
of information technology services and
security, is considering sending his staff
to evidence-handling school. When a
crime on campus is suspected, often it is
IT staffers who are the first to review
tapes, looking for suspicious activity, so
deBeaubien believes it's important that
those tapes are handled in such a way
that the footage is admissible in court.

The IT team at Michigan Tech, based in
Houghton, MI, became deeply involved in
public safety in 2005 as deBeaubien sought to upgrade
surveillance of the university data center. Public safety
officials told him they were dissatisfied with the existing
cameras on campus, which were monitored in a piecemeal
fashion with no central system coordination. They
asked deBeaubien to take charge of a project to upgrade
and/or replace the current system. As with other IT projects,
he did a needs assessment and helped public safety
figure out its requirements. As long as cost, security,
and accessibility requirements were met, deBeaubien
reports, Michigan Tech's public security staff "didn't really
care about the underlying technology, whether it was IPbased
or digital or analog."

With an IP-based telephone system and a campuswide
Ethernet network already in place, deBeaubien decided a
network of IP-based cameras was the way to go. The system
now uses IP cameras from several vendors in conjunction
with Video Insight monitoring software. DeBeaubien
says that the IT staff runs and maintains the system for public
safety, whose officials have a fully functional console so
they can view live and recorded video. IT staffers function
as video techs for public safety, helping them learn to use
the system and to find and process footage properly.

To ensure that both departments' priorities are being
addressed, the two groups jointly author policy for sharing
of and access to surveillance footage, camera placement
(to balance between privacy and security), who has access
to the footage, and other concerns.

Another issue the two teams are continually working on is
how to fund the expansion of camera locations. For example,
public safety pays for cameras in areas the department
is concerned about, such as certain parking lots and highpriority
outdoor areas, but residence halls pay for cameras
out of their own budgets. "That funding issue is one thing
we need to work on," deBeaubien says, adding that the relationship
is an ongoing process. "We continue to work closely
with [public safety] about strategy issues."

An IT Team of Its Own
In 2006, as the University of Texas at San Antonio police
department began to upgrade the technological infrastructure
supporting its security efforts, it also saw the need to
make some organizational changes to better manage its
resources and to communicate with the university's Office
of Information Technology (OIT).

OIT already had a somewhat decentralized model, with
an IT person in each department designated to support
staff and work on IT security. But the police department
previously had never felt a need to hire an internal IT staffer
until it started making technology-infrastructure investments
that impacted the campus network.

Its first hire in 2007 was Cynthia Govea, who came to
work as a technician with vendor Reverse 911, to help
install an enhanced phone/e-mail campus emergency system.
It was soon obvious to the executives overseeing the
security upgrades that she could be a valuable member of
their team. "We knew we needed someone full-time on our
staff rather than relying solely on IT for support," says Capt.
Daniel Kiley, support services division commander.
Govea explains that "part of my job here is to be the liaison
and develop very close relationships with the IT guys
upstairs, so that they are involved in decisions about any
new equipment or anything that might affect the network."
Govea adds that she also spends a good deal of her time
translating IT decisions into lay person's terms for the
police department staff.

She believes that a clear IT department structure facilitates
strong relationships and communication. The OIT
team is broken down into role-specific groups, so she
knows exactly with whom to speak when an issue comes
up, and whom to include in strategic discussions when
departmental projects are proposed. It's also clear to her
"where the division of labor is," Govea says. She knows she
is responsible for supporting the servers and specific applications
the department runs, and that OIT will support the
network and campuswide applications.

In 2009, the UTSA police department hired David De
Los Santos as the director of security systems, to oversee
issues related to information technology, security cameras,
and access services. He reports that among his responsibilities
is "getting involved in construction projects in the
planning stage." As more new buildings are planned, incorporating
cameras and card-reader technology into the
design of projects is cost-effective, he says.

Michigan Tech is considering sending IT staffers
to evidence-handling school to ensure that
surveillance videos are handled in such a way that the
footage is admissible in court.

In addition to Reverse 911, UTSA has installed a Cooper
Notification system, designed to deliver indoor/outdoor
mass notifications in an emergency. UTSA also has
replaced outdated black-and-white cameras with color
cameras from DVTel that possess greater visual and pantilt-
zoom capabilities, along with video-management software
from Salient Systems. To augment its traditional foot
and vehicle patrols, the university now has more than 400
cameras on campus, each with at least 30 days' worth of
video stored on a server, so detectives can travel back in
time electronically to review physical locations where a
crime may have been committed.

Donovan Agans, UTSA director of business continuity
and emergency management, calls these separate installations
the "technological cohesion in policing" project, because he sees it as a concerted effort to use all of UTSA's
public safety technology and employees to form a united
approach to crime prevention. "To do this, we had to have
greater team cohesion internally, but we also had to reach
out to engage the university community," he says, "especially
those in IT to help us look at these technologies."

Reaching out Into the Community

Lt. Brian Joschko uses the term "force multiplier" to
describe some of the ways technology upgrades have
enhanced security at Marquette University (WI).

As the support services coordinator for the Milwaukee
campus's department of public safety, Joschko is enthusiastic
about the university's 2007 expansion of video surveillance
to the neighborhood surrounding campus. Twelve
cameras have been added on a wireless network, using
Cisco's outdoor wireless mesh network solution.

"The idea is to expand the students' overall comfort level
and supplement officers on the street," he explains. "We
thought we could minimize cost by adding cameras to offcampus
areas. It's like having an officer on patrol 24/7 who
doesn't blink and who is always recording information. And,
with the accompanying signage about video surveillance,
it's a crime deterrent."

The outdoor wireless network project, and another to
create a command information center to monitor more than
400 cameras located on and off campus, challenged public
safety and IT leaders to work together in ways they hadn't
previously. But Dan Smith, senior director of IT services,
credits a disciplined project-management methodology for
keeping the project on track.

"When we implemented PeopleSoft a few years ago, we
set up a project-management office, and we realized one
of the success factors was having a partnership between
an IT staffer and a functional team leader," Smith recounts.
"That carried over to this project, so the department of
public safety defined the requirements, and the IT people
reviewed what that would mean for the access points, the
campus network, and looking at the vendors." For the outdoor
wireless network, staffers chose Cisco equipment
because they believed integration with the existing Cisco
network infrastructure would be smoother, and that
maintenance of the infrastructure would be easier with a
homogeneous vendor.

The project did present some challenges and surprises,
both managerial and technical. For example, the two system
integrators hired both were purchased by larger companies
during the middle of the project, but Smith says that
turned out not to be a big problem because the staff
assigned to the Marquette project did not change. On the
other hand, Marquette officials say they were surprised at
how readily members of the local community welcomed the
cameras. When they approached landlords in the adjacent
community to ask for permission to place the equipment on
their properties, nearly all were enthusiastic, and many
were even willing to commit to providing electrical power.

On the technical side, the first generation of outdoor
wireless access points were not adequate and had to be
replaced, and some network switches had to be upgraded.
During deployment, there were issues with throughput and
resolution. "You had to adjust the settings on the components
and make compromises on resolution to get adequate
speeds," explains Sean Samis, a project manager in
IT services.

"Before this project, Marquette had cameras in and outside
residence halls and other public buildings, but [the
wireless network] allows us to integrate our camera system
with our access-control system," Samis adds. The command
information center features digital video recorders
and network video recorders that display on a programmable
134-inch "video wall" in the public safety dispatch area.
The video is integrated on-screen with information from a
C-Cure 800/8000 access-control system.

Marquette officials say they already have seen tangible
results, including recording an attempted robbery at an offcampus
business. Video surveillance was used to capture
the perpetrators' vehicle, which ultimately led to a confession
by the suspects.

As Joschko notes, the use of video surveillance on urban
campuses is not unique to Marquette, but the ability to
extend its reach to off-campus locations is unusual and
has received applause both from students and from people
who live in the neighborhood, as well as from the Milwaukee
police department. More cameras are being
added both on and off campus. "We looked at adding
more officers," he says, "but this is like adding an officer
who never sleeps."